


If battles can win a war I can keep picking my sword up off the floor

by mayalice



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Eating Disorders, Hurt/Comfort, This fic is me falling apart and putting myself back together in 3000 words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21757225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayalice/pseuds/mayalice
Summary: Lena isn’t good. She is all grey areas and twisted plans and self-preservation. She is not the kind of good Kara needs, pure and simple and easy. Some days she isn’t sure there is something good in her at all.Lena is falling apart, Kara is there to help her pick up the pieces.
Relationships: Kara Danvers & Lena Luthor, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 5
Kudos: 142





	If battles can win a war I can keep picking my sword up off the floor

**Author's Note:**

> Am I done writing post-reveal angst? Probably not.  
> Thank you for all the positive response to my last fic, this means a lot to me.  
> It took me ages to find the right title, and I'm still not sure about it, but it's from the song Tiny victories by Christina Perri.

She buries herself in work. Channeling the pain into hours at the lab, the sleepless nights getting longer and longer and Lena gets home when the sun rises and attempts to get a few hours of sleep before it starts all over again. Kara’s calls go straight to voicemail. Her texts are left unanswered. She said nothing when Lex told her. She puts on a smile. Her hand still remembers the weight of the gun, the way he manages to make her feel so small even when she is the one holding all the power, the one who has the courage to finally end this. She said nothing when Kara told her herself. She just cries and cries and lets the emptiness inside her grow. Lets the numbness spread to every part of her body. Lets Kara holds her and pretends she can make it all okay somehow. 

Kara is trying, and all Lena wants it to let herself sink back into it, game nights and breakfasts from Paris, lunch dates and surprise visits to her office. But she never really had that, to begin with, hasn’t she? Kara has made it pretty clear that she doesn’t consider her a real friend. One she can trust with her secret. Even if now she decided Lena is worthy enough for this role, it doesn’t wipe out all the time she kept her in the dark. No amount of flying around the globe to bring Lena’s favorite food can make up for it. Lena doesn't deserve a person like Kara in her life. She never did. This is just the way of the universe to put things back in order. A Luthor and a Super can’t be friends. Lena ends up alone. End of story. 

She tells Kara she needs time, and hope she would get the hint, hope the ocean between them would finally grow enough to push her away. But Kara isn’t good at giving up on people. And Lena doesn’t really want her to leave. It is just that, she makes her feel raw and vulnerable. She makes her feel messed up and dirty and unworthy of someone like her. Someone bright and hopeful and good. Lena isn’t good. She is all grey areas and twisted plans and self-preservation. She is not the kind of good Kara needs, pure and simple and easy. Some days she isn’t sure there is something good in her at all. 

She feels helpless. She can’t fix it, can’t make this feeling go away, can’t look at Kara and pretend it doesn’t hurt. But this? Alone in her office, with a stream of new ideas and the quiet buzz of the machines around her? This she can do. She is on the verge of a breakthrough, of making history, of maybe making something good for a change, and if she doesn't have time to sleep or eat or call her friend back, that's a small price to pay, right? Except she is tired and hungry and she can't remember the last time she ate something that didn't come out of a takeout bag. She opens the refrigerator and looks at the empty shelves. They look back at her. She can order something, she can go to the grocery store and fill these shelves with actual food. But that would involve picking something to eat. And eating. She considers it for a moment. She makes another coffee.

Kara’s face beams with pride when she tells her about her new project. Lena calls her back after a small breakthrough, her fingers dialing her number like it’s the most natural thing in the world. She needs her, a normal lunch and someone to talk to before she goes back for more sleepless nights, trails and bug fixes. Kara is there in a heartbeat, carrying Big Belly Burger bags and a hesitates smile on her face. It’s the kind of day where everything falls into place and Lena thinks they can make it. The kind of day when the conversation flows and her heart doesn’t feel like it’s going to burst out of her chest. They still tiptoe around each other, but there is care in this weird little dance, there is love and effort to mend the broken pieces and move forward from here. 

When Kara leaves, mumbling an apology before she takes off her glasses and flies away, Lena eats the leftover fries. They are cold and greasy but she still sticks them in her mouth one by one until the box is empty and she is overcome with nausea. 

(She skips dinner)

Kara isn’t her’s. She has a world to save, a day job and a sister and other friends to take care of and Lena would never come first. She was the last to know and the last person Kara turns to for help, the last person she would call to when she is upset, and Lena has no one else to turn to, she spent a lifetime trying to be someone's first choice, craving attention from people who couldn’t care less and she always ends up heartbroken and alone, struggling to believe she could do better than this. 

She has coffee for breakfast and lunch and dinner takes a few bites from a granola bar when she gets a little dizzy, work and work and work until her computer screen becomes blurry, until she loses track of time. She knows what it is. There is a voice inside that sounds awfully like her mother, telling her, _you are not a little girl anymore,_ but Lena is nothing but stubborn and she can’t make Kara care, but she can try to make the rest of the world see, she just needs to push herself a little harder and put together a prototype before someone else would (even if she is breaking herself in the process). 

She is cold. She turns off the air conditioning but somehow she is still freezing. She sits there, covered in her old college hoodie, and tries hard not to fall asleep. The silence in the building is unnerving, her heart beats too fast, every muscle sore, but Lena pushes through, her deadline approaching and caffeine flows in her vines.

When she steps on the scale, it’s out of curiosity more than anything. It’s been years since she fought her body like this, years since she made peace with the way it changed and grew uncontrollably. Years since she learned to own and embrace every minor imperfection. She had bad days before, sure. But she always came to her senses in time to pull through, only flirted with her demons before putting them back where they belong. And she has every intention to do it again, to put the past back in its little box once the project is ready and her relationship with Kara feels less rocky. But she can’t help but be filled with a familiar satisfaction when she sees that she lost weight. She can’t help but get carried away. 

She tells herself she got it under control. She is a scientist. She knows her body needs fuel. knows how long she can get away with only feeding it with coffee and yogurt and some green smoothie when she needs a little extra energy. People do juice cleanses all the time right? even if she never missed an opportunity to express how stupid she thinks they are, it’s not the worst thing she can do to herself. (It’s not the worst thing she did to herself).

Kara is worried about her, and there is a part of Lena that thinks good, a part of her that waits for Kara to notice something is wrong. She picks through her salad when they meet for lunch, and every other person would have missed it, would just assume she is not really hungry and let it slide. How many dinners did she get through by just sitting there and smiling and pretending everything is fine? Every other person would have missed it, but not Kara because she is looking at her now, concern in her eyes and asks if everything is okay. She doesn’t push when Lena lies, doesn’t call her out on it, and Lena waits for relief that doesn’t come. 

She pours herself a glass of Whisky when she gets home, and then another. She doesn’t have a lot in her stomach to absorb it, doesn’t really need more than this for the world around her to spin, for her head to become heavy, for sleep to come and take her away. She wakes up in the middle of the night, disoriented and nausea and scared. Her heart is beating too fast. Her head pounding. Her legs too shaky to stand on. She can't reach her phone, too dizzy, too exhausted to walk all the way to the kitchen counter. The watch Kara gave her is still on her wrist and Lena's fingers hover over the button for a long minute before she presses it. 

Kara is there not even a second later like she was waiting outside her window this whole time. 

"Kara" her voice sounds foreign to her ears, desperate and shaky and small.

"I'm here" Kara lays a comforting hand on her shoulder, "tell me what's wrong."

Something is wrong with Lena. She tries to shake off this feeling and pretend it’s not there, because she needs her to be okay, she needs them to be okay. But something is definitely wrong. Lena looks paler than usual. Her makeup is impeccable, but Kara can see the black circles underneath, she can see the way her dress doesn't sit quite right, and her collarbones threat to cut through her skin. She had seen Lena overworking herself before, seen her tired and messy and drunk, but this is something else, this is bad. Lena refuses to acknowledge something is wrong, and all Kara can do it watch her from a distance and hope that whatever it is, Lena would pull herself through. 

She circles her house just in case. Peeking in between stopping car crashes and chasing off thieves. Lena is fast asleep. There is a bottle of whiskey on the table next to her, which is alarming but not exactly out of character. She checks in on her every few hours, monitoring her heartbeat and watching her toss and turn and cry in her sleep. She clearly has bad dreams, and Kara wants to come inside and hold her and promise it’s going to be okay. But she doesn’t quite sure where they stand, and Lena did ask for space, and she doesn’t sure she would react so well to Kara showing up in her living room in the middle of the night. 

So she keeps watching the city and watching Lena and she just a couple of blocks away, helping a drunk girl find her keys and get home safely when Lena calls and Kara’s heart sinks. 

She scans the living room for any immediate danger, but it’s empty apart for the two of them. Lena is on the couch, where she last saw her, awake and shaking and clearly not okay. Oh, Lena. 

“I’m here. Tell me what’s wrong”.

Lena doesn’t talk very much. She clings to Kara and cries into her cape, her breath shaky and uneven, and mumbles things that don't have a lot of coherence. She wonders if she should take her to the hospital. But she looks fine, physically. Pale and thinner than usual, and obviously exhausted, but not sick exactly. She texts Alex just in case, and she tells her it might just be a panic attack, but she should watch her heart and breath and take her straight to the DEO if anything changes. 

Kara does just that, she stays, helping Lena change out of her work suite and into more comfortable clothes before changing herself, trading super-suit with pajama pants and a sweater she borrows from Lena’s closet. She turns on the heat in the house and finds a warm blanket for Lena, since she insists to stay in the living room, refusing to go back to sleep. Lena’s hands are cold as ice and Kara takes them between hers trying to rise her body temperature. It’s not even that cold outside, why is she so cold?

Lena still hasn’t said much. Just stay and in the top right drawer and cold. She accepts the tea Kara makes for her, drinking slowly and avoiding Kara’s eyes. She looks almost back to herself, her heartbeat steadier, her breath more even and the situation they are in must be just dawning on her because she looks kind of embarrassed. 

“Hey,” Kara says, trying to make her look at her. “It’s okay, it’s me, you don’t need to be embarrassed” Slowly Lena lifts her eyes and meets Kara’s gaze. 

“Thank you, for coming, for being here.”

“Of course I came, I was really worried about you. I’m still worried” 

“I’m fine, just, having a bad day, or a couple of days, I guess” 

“I’m here for you. What do you need?”

“I know you must have better things to do, but can you just stay with me? for a little longer?”

“Of course”

It’s only when Lena tries to get up and go to the bathroom that Kara notices she still looks kind of ill. She must have got up too fast because she loses her balance and crashes back on the couch almost immediately, and Kara is back to being concerned. Something is still wrong with her physically.

“Do you need a hand?”

“Just got a little dizzy, I'll be fine” 

And suddenly it’s dawn on Kara. Why Lena looks so pale and thin, why is she so weak, so cold, why did she completely passed out after a moderate amount of whiskey. 

“When was the last time you ate something?” Lena considers her words for a second. 

“it’s been a while”

“Okay” Kara takes a deep breath, trying to figure out what is her best course of action.

“Do you think you can eat something now?” 

Lena makes an unclear sound. Kara takes it as a yes. She helps Lena get to the bathroom and then starts opening kitchen drawers, looking for something simple she can make. She doesn’t want to go with something too heavy, it is four in the morning after all, and she isn’t sure Lena can stomach a lot anyway. She is thinking a soup, or maybe oatmeal, the fancy kind Eliza used to make her and Alex when they were little. Thankfully Lena’s kitchen has everything she needs, and by the time Lena steps out of the bathroom, Kara has already set the table and put the milk on the stovetop. 

There is an amazing smell coming from her kitchen. Lena had already decided she would eat whatever it is Kara is cooking for her, she would convince Kara she is okay and then she would figure out how to trick herself into actually being okay. 

Kara doesn't press her, she just sits in front of her and mumbles about the perfect oatmeal recipe while emptying most of her own bowl in like, ten seconds.

Lena takes a small spoon and puts it in her mouth. It's good. Full with cinnamon and definitely made with milk and not just water like she uses to. She takes another one. The warmth spreads in her belly almost immediately. She eats about half of her bowl. She still feels weak, but the world is a little bit steadier. Almost back into full focus. 

Kara is eyeing her now, she is quiet and there is something unsettling about it, the way her face is clouded with worry. Lena feels a sudden urge to make the clouds go away, to reassure Kara that everything is going to be okay. 

“You can ask if you want to”

All she can give her is honesty. 

“I don’t want to assume but…” Kara bites her lips “I have to know, was it because of me, my secret?” Lena nodded slowly and Kara’s stomach makes an uncomfortable twist. 

The room around them is too quiet. Kara focuses on Lena’s heartbeats, the way her chest rises and falls. The smell of cinnamon. She is waiting for Lena to continue. Waiting for her to break another piece of her heart. 

“It wasn’t just that you didn’t tell me” Lena is avoiding her gaze again, her fingers fiddle with a loose thread in her hoodie. 

“I put you first,” she says after a long minute of silence “You came into my life and I put you before my work, before my family, before everything, and it’s stupid, but I knew you didn’t put me first, that you have Alex and your friends and your job, but to find out you put me last? that I was literally the last person to know? that’s hurt, Kara” 

Kara knows that had dread telling Lena for exactly that reason, but Lena got hurt anyway and Kara’s heart aches. 

“It’s not stupid. You have every reason to be mad at me for not putting you first. I don’t have a good excuse for this, because you are amazing Lena, you are wonderful and smart and caring and I should have let you in like you let me, I should have shared my secret with you from the very beginning and see what happens but I was scared, and then I got scared that I waited too long and I’m sorry, and I know I said it before, but I’m really truly sorry. “

“I know. I’m not mad at you, not anymore at least” 

“you don’t?”

Lena nodes slowly. “It still hurt, but I think I understand. It’s just that, no one ever put me first, and it’s not your fault but you hit a sore spot and it’s silly, but I thought that if I can put together this project if I could make you proud of me, if I’d do something good, maybe we can start over, maybe I could be someone worthy of your attention”.

“Of course you are worthy of my attention, you don’t need to prove yourself to me, Lena, is that why you have been working yourself so hard?” Lena nodes again. 

“To be fair, it wasn’t just for you. I think I was trying to prove it to myself, more than to anyone else”

“And…” Kara hesitates for a moment, “the eating?”, Lena covers her face in her hands. “I know, this is so humiliating, Lilian would be mortified to know I’m still acting like a fifteen-year-old”. 

“So, this is an issue?” Lena bites her lips. 

“It uses to be, not anymore, not recently at least” 

“And now?”

“It’s easy to slip into old habits. Especially when I’m overwhelmed” 

“Are you going to be okay?” Kara sounds small and scared, she sounds like she cares, not in the usual way she cares about every citizen of national city, but in a special way saves for her. 

Lena doesn’t really know how to answer that. She feels vulnerable, like opening up about these things always makes her feel, but the emptiness inside already starting to feel like something she can sleep off and put behind her. 

“I think so. I hope so”. 

Kara reaches out to take her hands.

“Would you tell me if you aren’t?” Lena looks at her and nods slowly. 

(She means it). 

Healing is not a linear process. Lena still has days when she is unsure. Days when all she sees are doubts. Days when she looks in the mirror and hates everything. 

She opens her little boxes one by one, trying to sort through her emotions, to hang them back in the closet, labeled and properly dealt with. She gets better at asking for help. She gets better at leaning in on other people when she needs them. Kara is there every step of the way, making sure she sleeps and eats and takes breaks. When her mind is playing tricks on her, Kara is there to reminds her everything good about herself, until she can almost block away the voices that tell her otherwise. 

She would always have her insecurities, would always have to fight the parts of her that think she is not enough, but with Kara on her side, it’s easier to believe she can win this round.

  
  
  



End file.
